Fake rechargeable batteries can be found in flea markets, international bazaars, and on eBay. They usually fail after a few charges, ruin your gadgets by leaking acid, and in rare cases can explode. Learn how to spot the fakes and save your money for the real thing.

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Travel weblog The Longest Way Home shares that the best way to find out if a rechargeable battery is fake is to check the labels and packaging—obvious stuff like misspellings will let you know the batteries aren't legit but also keep an eye out for faded colors on the battery label (indicative of a cheap quality print job) and badly constructed packaging with loose plastic covers and a cheap quality card inside the plastic. Also watch out for spurious claims of capacity; the fake Sony battery in the photo above claims to have a 3800mAh capacity while the highest currently-available Sony rechargeable AAs have a maximum of 2500 mAh storage capacity.

Cell phone and camera batteries can likewise be easily faked. Sometimes the third-party batteries are as good as the originals and I've bought a few from eBay with great results, but only after careful research, and I don't personally buy AA or AAA rechargeable batteries from third-party sources.